IN ONE YEAR: Homeopathy could have helped

The following should not be regarded as medical advice. For proper homeopathic treatment, consult a homeopath.

In one year 14,000 Americans were killed on the job, 90 percent men. Homeopathy could have helped to reduce those numbers with the application of homeopathic aconitum napellum to prevent shock.

20,000 Americans others suffered from poisoning by E.coli 0157-H7, the mutant bacteria found in contaminated meat that generally leads to lifelong physical and mental health problems. 4,000 Americans died from it. Homeopathy could have helped with a single dose of Pyrogenium.

30,000 or more children were left permanently physically disabled from abuse and neglect. Child abuse in the United States afflicts more children each year than leukemia, automobile accidents, and infectious diseases combined. With growing unemployment, incidents of abuse by jobless parents increased dramatically. Homeopathy could have helped with individualized constitutional treatments and a remedy such as Magnesium muriaticum

60,000 Americans were killed by toxic environmental pollutants or contaminants in food, water, or air. Homeopathy could have helped with individualized treatment.

In one year 85,000 Americans were wounded by firearms, of which 38,000 die, 2,600 children. Homeopathy could have helped with ledum pelustre , aconitum napellum, arnica Montana and individualized constitutional treatments.

150,000 American children are reported missing every year. 50,000 of these simply vanish. Their ages range from one year to mid-teens. According to the New York Times, “Some of these are dead, perhaps half of the John and Jane Does annually buried in this country are unidentified kids.” Homeopathy could have helped with individualized treatments. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies like Absin. Cimic. OP. Phos. Plb. Rhus-t. Staph. Stram., Falco-p, and Magnesium muriaticum

In one year, 160,000 Americans died from diabetes. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Apoc. Carc. Kali-n. Squil. and Uran-n.

In one year 180,000 Americans had adverse reactions to all medical treatments, more than were killed by airline and automobile accidents combined. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Agar. Ant-c. Bry. Chin. COLOC. Hydr. Lach. NUX-V. Op. Ruta and Sulph.

In one year 200,000 Americans were subjected to electric shock treatments injurious to the brain and nervous system. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Bar-m. Laur. and Stry.

In one year 280,000 Americans were institutionalized for mental illness or mental retardation. Many of these were forced to take heavy doses of mind control drugs. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as . ALUM. ANAC., APIS, ARS. BAR-M., BELL,. CIC., CIMIC. CUPR., HYOS. IGN. LACH., LYC., MERC. NUX-V., PHOS., PLAT., PULS., SABAD., STRAM. SULPH. TARENT., VERAT.

700,000 American women were raped, one every 45 seconds. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Staphysagria, AIDS Cench. Kreos. LSD. Petr. Posit. Sep.

950,000 American school children are treated with powerful mind control drugs for “hyperactivity” every year–with side effects like weight loss, growth retardation and acute psychosis. Homeoapthy could have helped with remedies such as ACON. Arg-n. Camph-br. Cinnb. Coch. Phos. Stry. Sul-ac. Tarent. Thea and Valer.

But these are small figures, in the thousands. Let’s look at what’s happening in the millions.

In one year 1,000,000 American children ran away from home, mostly because of abusive treatment, including sexual abuse from parents and other adults. Of the many sexually abused children among runaways, 83 percent came from white families. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies like Lyc., Falco-p. Herin.

In one year . .

1,000,000 or more American children were kept in orphanages, reformatories, and adult prisons. Most were arrested for minor transgressions or had committed no crime at all and were jailed without due process. Most were from impoverished backgrounds. Many were subjected to beatings, sexual assault, prolonged solitary confinement, mind control drugs, and in some cases . . psychosurgery. Homeopathy could have helped with a remedy such as Magnesium muriaticum and individualized treatment.

1,000,000 Americans were estimated to have AIDS as of 1996; over 250,000 died of it. Homeopathy could have helped with a remedy such as Carcinosin.
1,126,000 of the elderly live in nursing homes. A large but undetermined number endured conditions of extreme neglect, filth, and abuse in homes that were run with an eye to extracting the highest possible profit. Homeopathy could have helped with individualized treatment.

1,300,000 Americans suffered some kind of injury related to treatment at hospitals. Homeopathy could have helped with individualized treatment.

1,800,000 elderly Americans who live with their families were subjected to serious abuse such as forced confinement, underfeeding, and beatings. The mistreatment of elderly people by their children and other close relatives grew dramatically as economic conditions worsened. Homeopathy could’ve helped the victims in their recovery and the victimizers with their anger with remedies such as Nux-v, Cere-s. LSD. Posit. Salx-f. Staph..

2,000,000 Americans underwent unnecessary surgical operations; 10,000 of them died from the surgery. Homeopathy could have helped by providing remedies that would have made the surgery unnecessary, and helped to heal patients who had surgery that was necessary.

2,000,000 or more Americans are homeless, forced to live on the streets or in makeshift shelters. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Selenium metallicum., Calcareaa, and Silicea.

2,000,000 non-hospitalized Americans were given powerful mind-control drugs, sometimes described as “chemical straitjackets.” Homeopathy could have helped by providing a safe and effective alternative to initate an internal cure with remedies such as Alum. Carb-v. Cina Kali-c. Phel. Plat. and Stram.

2,000,000 to 4,000,00 American women were battered. Domestic violence was the single largest cause of injury and second largest cause of death to American women. Homeopathy could have helped the victim with recovery from the trauma with a remedies such as Arn. and Staph and helped the assailant with his anger with remedies such as Croc. Mez. and Sulph.

2,900,000 American children were reportedly subjected to serious neglect or abuse, including physical torture and deliberate starvation. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Ignatia, Ars. Sep. and Staph.

3,000,000 or more Americans suffered cerebral and physical handicaps including paralysis, deafness, blindness, and lesser disabilities. A disproportionate number of them were poor. Many of these disabilities could have been corrected with early treatment or prevented with better living conditions. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Anh. Ars. Gels. Kali-t. Kalm. Lath. Mang. Peti. Phys. Pic-ac. Pip-m. Rhus-v. Stry. Thal. Thyr. Wild. for paraplegia; Agar. Aur. BELL. CALC. Caps. CAUST. CHIN. CIC. CON., HYOS.., MERC., NAT-M. NIT-AC., OP. PHOS., PULS., SEP. SIL. and SULPH. for incipient loss of vision; and over 1,000 remedies for lesser diabiltiies

In one year 3,000,000 American workers were unemployed but not counted because their unemployment benefits had run out, or they never qualified for benefits, or they had given up looking for work, or they joined the armed forces because they were unable to find work. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Arg-n. Cadm-s. Calc. Cham. Cygnus-b. Gran. Hyos. Ind. Kali-c. Kali-p. Kali-s. Nat-m. Nux-v. Petr. Puls. Ran-b. Sanic. Sel. Sil. Sulph. Tab. Tarax. And Tong.

In one year 4,000,000 American children were growing up with unattended learning disabilities. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies like AGAR. Agn. Anac. Ars. Bar-c. Calc-p. Calc. Caust. Con. Mag-p. Nat-m. Olnd. Ph-ac. Phos.

In one year 4,500,000+ American children, or more than half of the 9,000,000 children, were on welfare, suffering from malnutrition. Many of these suffer brain damage caused by prenatal and infant malnourishment. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Nat-s, Fl-ac., Iodatum, Lycopodium, Sulphur, Sepia, Phosphorus, Platina, petroleum, Aconitum, Agaricus, Anacardium, Hepar, Causticum, Alcoholus sulphurus, Mezerreum, Opium, Natrum carbonic, kali phosphoricum.

The American under allopathy

In one year five and a half million (5,500,000) Americans are arrested for something more than a traffic violation.
Homeopathy could have helped with the problems that led up to the arrest, such as over 40 remedies indicated by violent anger, such as Agar. BELL. HYOS. LSD. STRAM. For violent rage, and 80 indicated by alcoholism, such as Alum. Bov. Con. Indicated by easy intoxication. When cross indexed with remedies for violent rage and 125 remedies for cancer, Conium stands out as a key remedy.

In one year six and a half million (6,500,000) used heroin, crack, speed, PCP, cocaine or some other hard drug on a regular basis. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Agar. Ant-c. Bry. Chin. COLOC. Hydr. Lach. NUX-V. Op. Ruta and Sulph, indicated in drug poisoning.

In one year 13 million (13,000,000) Americans were victims of crimes such as assault, rape, armed robbery, burglary, larceny, and arson. My quick reckoning estimates that number is more than 4% of the population were subjected to theft or violence. That means that at thirteen million a year, within 25 years the entire U.S. population could be robbed or assaulted. That means that homeopathy could help the entire U.S. population with remedies such Sulphur, Calcarea Carbonica, Lycopodium, Arsenicum Album, Thuja., Aconitum Napellus., Nux Vomica., Pulsatilla, Silica, Hepar, China Officinalis, Belladonna, Bryonia., Arnica Montana.

With so much violence, should it be surprising that 135,000 American children took guns to school? Homeopathy could have helped. Could it be that these children had come to believe that they were so quietly terrified that they had to carry a firearm to school? Other reasons might be given, such as the feelings of anger, control or power that firearm gives one, but I submit to you that the primary cause is terror. Twelve remedies are indicated by cross indexing violence and fear: Nux-v, Nat-m, Hyoscamus, Ledum palustre, Stramonium, Aurum, Belladonna, Bryonia, Veratrum, Arunica, Chamomille, Cicuta virosa, Nitric acid.

In one year 5,100,000 Americans were behind bars, on probation or on parole. 2,700,000 were either locked up in county, state or federal prisons or under legal supervision. Each week 1,600 more Americans went to jail than left it.

In one year the U.S. prison population had skyrocketed to over 200 percent since 1980. Over 40 percent of American inmates were jailed or on non-violent drug related crimes.
Homeopathy could have helped.

In one year African Americans constituted 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences. For non-drug offenses, African Americans got prison terms that averaged about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes.
Homeopathy could have helped.

In one year 6,000,000 Americans were in “contingent” jobs, or jobs structured to last only temporarily. About 60 percent of these reportedly would prefer permanent employment.
Homeopathy could have helped.

In one year 6,800,000 Americans turned to their ministers, welfare agencies, and social counselors for help with emotional problems. In all, some 80,000,000 had already sought some kind of psychological counseling in their lifetimes. Homeopathy could have helped with hundreds of remedies indicated by various emotional problems.

In one year 7,000,000 to 12,000,000 Americans were unemployed; numbers vary with the business cycle. Increasing numbers of the chronically unemployed show signs of stress and emotional depression. Homeopathy could have helped with 256 remedies indicated by depression.

In one year 10,000,000+ suffered from symptomatic asthma, an increase of 145 percent from 1990 to 1995, reportedly due to the increase in air pollution. Homeopathy could have helped with 245 remedies indicated by asthma.

In one year 12,000,000 of those Americans at poverty’s rock bottom suffered from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

In one year the majority of Americans were living at or below the poverty level experience hunger during some portion of the year. Homeopathy could have helped with 17 remedies indicated by a fear of poverty.

In one year 15,000,000 or more Americans were part-time or reduced-time “contract” workers who needed full-time jobs and working without benefits. Homeopathy could have helped with a vast repertoire of FDA regulated drugs that have been found tobe effective in inexpensively helping people with any emotional or physical problem.

In one year 16,000,000 Americans had diabetes, up from 11,000,000 in 1983 as Americans had become more sedentary and sugar addicted. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage.
Homeopathy could have helped with 68 remedies indicated by diabetes mellitus.

In one year, 25,000,000, or one out of every 10 Americans, sought help from psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, or medical sources for mental and emotional problems, at a cost of over $4 billion. Homeopathy could have helped with cost effective, affordable treatment for anyone with mental or emotional problems of any kind

31,450,000 Americans had used marijuana; 3,000,000 of them were heavy users. Homeopathy could have helped anyone who wanted to kick the habit of marijuana smoking.

37,000,000 Americans, or one out of every six Americans, most of them women, regularly used emotion controlling medical drugs. 5,000 died from psychoactive drug treatments. 600 to 1,000 were lobotomized, most of them women.

40,000,000 or more Americans were without health insurance or protection from catastrophic illness.

40,000,000 Americans, or one of every four women and more than one of every ten men, were estimated to have been sexually molested as children, most often between the ages of 9 and 12, usually by close relatives or family acquaintances. Such abuse reportedly always extends into their early teens and is a part of their continual memory and not a product of memory retrieval in therapy.

80,000,000 Americans live on incomes estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor as below a “comfortable adequacy”; 35,000,000 of these Americans live below the poverty level.

160,000,000+ Americans are members of households that are in debt, a sharp increase from the 100 million of less than a decade ago. A majority indicate they have borrowed money not for luxuries but for necessities. Mounting debts threatened a financial crack-up in more and more families.

In one year . . homeopathy could have helped to have relieved the majority of debilitating stress affecting more than half of all Americans.

May God Bless America . . with homeopathy.

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Disclaimer: I have no connection with so called ‘big pharma’ whatsoever.

So called ‘big pharma’ does indeed have much to answer for. See Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre.

This does not mean that homeopathty is of any value whatsoever, See Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

Since you cannot accuse Goldacre of being in the pocket of ‘big pharma’ you simply have to answer the questions and criticisms of homeopathy that he raises.

The fact that some, but by no means all pharma companies have cheated, or made mistakes, does not discredit the scientific method. The scientific method, when properly applied, does not support homeopathy, ever.

Homeopathy is the application of wishful thinking. It may, on occasion induce the placebo effect for minor ailments, but it does not and cannot work, as a credible mechanism for curing or helping to cure anything.

In fact, it takes virtually no effort whatsoever to understand why it is that homeopathy is effectively useless. It is entirely understandable that desperate people can be fooled into trying anything, but that is not an excuse to peddle nonsense. If all the money that is spent on homeopathy was applied instead to valid medical science, we might be further down the line to finding valid cures and treatments.

Anyway, as above, simply read Goldacre, who explains himself clearly and in terms laymen can understand, then make up your own mind.

Oh, and one more thing, ‘big pseudomedicine’ is an industry just as much as ‘big pharma’.

I was just thinking of Goldacre the moment before I opened the email with your misinformed comment. Three years ago almost to the day I was in England to give presentations on the Supramolecular Chemistry of the Homeopathic Remedy at Hahnemann College in London and the Cavendish Lab in Cambridge, the latter by invitation of Nobel prize winning physicist Brian Josephson.
Prof. JOsephson asked me who we should invite, and I suggested Ben Goldacre. But Goldacre demurred, said he had to work at his boring day job. Here was England’s most notable medical journalist, a noted homeopathy basher, your hero, invited to a talk on the physics of homeopathy by a Nobel prize winning physicist, where Ben could presumably have stood up on his two strong legs and challenged everything I said, on a scientific basis. But of course no. The little coward knows that when he’s faced with the literature from the material sciences, which demolshes his flimsy “scientific” argument agianst homeopathy(which I doubt you’ll ever read) he’ll roll up in the fetal position and suck his thumb. So will you, you little crybaby, because like Goldacre, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
IF this is such a scam, why is it then that you think it still persists under the protection of law? In other words, if you continue going in the direction you’re going, you can get sued for malice and defamation, and you should be, you should be held to account for your spread of malicious pseudoscience.
You can watch the ppt and hear the Cavendish lecture Goldacre fled from online. Google “physics of homeopathy” or go to http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1074586 for audio
and http://tinyurl.com/supramolecular for the power pt. of The Supramolecular Chemistry of the Homeopathic Remedy.
Watch this blog for continuing posts on the real physics of homeopathy.

If you ever became ill with a disease such as cancer or a serious life-threatening infection would you treat it with homeopathy alone or would you use a combination of conventional and homeopathic remedies?

Pigeon, it is so overwhelming to consider the possibility that good health is the source of peace, harmony and good government. It challenges us to consider that maybe, just maybe good health is the foundation of our proper behavior. Perhaps there are no intrinsically evil people, perhaps just malnourished or maltreated sick people.

so once the perpetrators of crime are healing from within, we have the beginning of a solution to crime.

the victims of crime are continually traumatized by the memory of crime, the social impact of certain crimes.. the related syndromes of post traumatic stress, – rape, assault, domestic abuse,– at the point where the victimization becomes an illness that takes on a life of it’s own, – yes homeopathy can help .

an injury can last an agonizing, unending moment, but the trauma lasts a lifetime because we don’t heal from it. Homeopathy gives us information that helps our bodies heal.

At the foundation of John’s extremely informative post, with statistics that should humble our allopathic arrogance, is that humans in an imbalanced condition are sick, damaged, damaging and in pain.

The arguments presented here , critical of JB’s information, deny, overlook or dismiss the philosophical proposal that healthy people do not become criminals and that healthy, victimized people can heal from their traumas. Socially, economically, emotionally, politically, physically and psychically, – health is a fundamental condition. Without it every outcome is a compensation and a handicap. Every solution We have lowered our expectations for health. Shame on us for acquiescing to the precepts of a patriarchal system that wants to keep us sick, sad and hopeless. By saying to a victim of crime, circumstance and lowered expectations, that they have been harmed to the point of incapacity, it is not love, it is not care, it is categorization and dismissal based entirely on the needs of the caregiver. A person who wants more, who demands a seat on the bus, who insists on being counted is inconvenient. As a nation we sedate, medicate and suppress the feelings and pain of an outraged, injured nation, because it makes the rest of us uncomfortable.. Not taking the sedation , not keeping our hopes to ourselves is a messy business. And it leaves us all asking…. what kind of life would I have lived if I thought more was possible?

Good health means to have a high consciousness. Illness derives from a blockage in consciousness. So higher consciousness just gives one the opportunity to understand and to take the right choice. If someone understands this and despite of this insight desires to “dump down the nation” through chemical medication and drugs which lowers consciousness, then this person is really evil and coward.

As a future Registered Nurse, I find this offensive. It devalues all the individuals who has problems in their lives; whether or not they are able to change their living circumstances, I don’t think it is fair to say that homeopathy could have cured every single one of these ailments.

I thought that the point of a homeopath was to help an individual reach health through alternative and complementary therapies while disbarring the “Medical Model” of patient care.

I’ll tell you what; the Medical Model is proven effective, however, it incorporates preventative medicine and care. Your solution to everything seems to be a supplement for everything. I can tell you that the FDA or any other major organization dealing in the administration of food and drugs will substantiate any of the claims made by any of these medications.

In order to understand what John has written about how homeopathy could have helped all this people, one needs first to understand what good health means. Mainstream medicine consider good health as the absence of any symptom. But this kind of definition is superficial and denote a lack of interest of the nature of human consciousness and health. George Vithoulkas has described good health as the ability to be creative for oneself AND for the community. So even if someone has mobility problems, but has a open mind helping others by their insights, art or science or both, this would mean that the person has a better health than someone with perfect mobility (or body), but lacks to open his mind for finding creative solutions to everyday problems.

So if you write that you are a “future registered nurse”, suggesting that you have basic knowledge of mainstream medicine (and for sure also willed to help other people), consider to open your mind on the alternative explanation of what health is, even maybe of what consciousness is. This will help yourself and the community.

Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a f***ing dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!

John, You say “I find Scofield to be a particularly interesting review,…”
I agree I looked it up and read a few analyses of Scofield’s work and all that I found showed his work to be largely bunk. Seeing as he ignored the scientific process when doing his work I think we can safely ignore his work, until it meets the stringency and rules that the scientific process should follow.

A comprehensive review of experimental research in homeopathy was done by Scofield (1984).
He concluded: “It is obvious from this review that, despite much experimental and clinical work, there is only little evidence to suggest that homeopathy is effective.”
Scofield’s most encouraging statement for homeopaths was that “homeopathy has most certainly not been disproved.”
However, Scofield ignored the scientific process. It is the absence of proof, not the absence of disproof, that is important. This is consistent with scientific dicta (based upon the statistical null hypothesis)that(1) no practice can be deemed safe or effective until proved to be so; and (2) the burden of proof is upon proponents.

Dear Daniel — There you go again. Without telling us how Scofield ignored the “scientific process” doesn’t tell us whether he did or not. I could say the same about anything I don’t like. SUch as allopathy: “John Benneth says allopathy ignores the scientific process.” Does that make it right? How do we prove it? It’s certainly much easier to criticize work than it is to actually do it, and basically that’s all I’m finding in the crticism of homeopathy, and yours is a perfect example of it. Your convictions don’t even give you enough strength to clearly identify yourself. In fact that’s what made me take a second look. I began seeing that the vituperative conclusions about homeoapthy were actually flat out wrong, coming from clandestine sources.
You say that Scofield ignored the scientific process, but you make no statement about what that process is. We’re all suppose to know. Scofield is actually quite cirtical of the quality of homeoapthic research, but I’ve seen wrose said about the research for patent drugs, most notably Pfizer slapped with four billion dollars in fines for bribing doctors to murder people with untested drugs. The results of failing to proper test allopathic drugs borught about convictions for racketeering under the U.S. Rico Act, with more to come. ANd that’s just one company. Lawyers are getting rich because drug companies didn’t follow “the scientic provess.” So where’s you concerned and objvetive eye for that? Hmm? C’mon, you flaming hypocrite. You say homeopathy is bunk, and to millions it’s true because you say its true? Even though you fail to scientiically and legally prove it? I can just as easily say you’re a drug compnay stooge, and millions will be happy to believe that too, but the difference is I can comprehnsively prove it.
Likewise you fail to back up your criticism of Scofield with anything but opinion, except for some vague references to what you read others write. You cite nothing.
You say “it is the absence of proof, not the absence of disproof, that is important.” No, to prove that homeoapthy and the use of its FDA regualted drugs is a sham you have to do it in a court of law. YOU LOSE! We are innocent until proven guilty! If you think otherwise, submit your true bill.
Material scientist Roy et al, in their analysis of homeopathy said “The burden of proof on critics of homeopathy is to establish that the structure of the processed remedy is not different from the original solvent. The principal conclusions of this paper concern only the plausibility of the biological action of ultradiluted water remedies, they are based on some very old (e.g. homeopathy) and some very new (e.g. metallic and nanobubble colloids) observations which have been rejected on invalid grounds or due to ignorance of the materials research literature and its theoretical basis. This constitutes an excellent example of the common error in rejecting new scientific discoveries by using the absence of evidence as evidence for absence.” [The Structure Of Liquid Water; Novel Insights From Materials Research; Potential Relevance To Homeopathy Rustum Roy1, W.A. Tiller2, Iris Bell3, M. R. Hoover4]
Voila! So before taking a completely dismissive attitude towards homeoapthy, as the pharmastoogical interests would have us do, one should ask, “why it is that people of the stature of Roy, Tiller, Bell and Hoover are investigating dilutes as used in homeopathy and not concluding them to be inert?”
I also find it odd that you would cite Scofield to say “there is only little evidence to suggest that homeopathy is effective” while dismissing him for ignoring the scientific process, while not establishing what ctiteria bears out that claim. It works both ways.
Now let me give you an example of what i’m talking about in a proper review of the literature. two researchers, Johnson and Boon, reviewed the litearure for the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. One of the meta analyses they reported on was Shang, the one meta analysis most if not all critics of homeopathy inevitably rely upon in their charge of placebo:
“Several meta-analyses have also concluded that homeopathic treatment is significantly better than placebo (Table 1).45-47 The first was carried out in 1991 by Kleijnen et al.45 They identified 107 published papers that scientifically evaluated the efficacy of homeopathically prepared treatments. Of these studies, 81 reported positive effects for homeopathy, with 9 of the 11 highest quality trials showing positive results.
“A second, extremely rigorous, meta-analysis was conducted in 1997 by Linde et al in an attempt to ascertain whether or not the clinical effects of homeopathy are due to placebo effects.46 They evaluated 186 clinical trials that tested the efficacy of homeopathically prepared treatments. Of these, 89 reported sufficient data to be included in the main meta-analysis. After controlling for publication bias, and quality of evidence, their results showed that homeopathy performed significantly better (combined odds ratio was 2.45 in favour of homeopathy) than placebo, with a confidence interval of 95%.46 Additional scrutiny, including methodological revisions by the authors themselves in a subsequent paper, confirmed these findings.48-50
In contrast to findings by Kleijnen and Linde, a 2005 meta-analysis by Shang et al that was published in Lancet found that the efficacy of homeopathic treatment was no different than placebo.51 However, this study has been highly criticized for being methodologically flawed on many levels.52-61 Of particular concern, the researchers eliminated 102 of 110 homeopathic trials and based their conclusions on only the 8 largest high-quality trials without clearly identifying the criteria by which these trials were selected or the identity of these trials. Odds ratios calculated before the exclusions (on all 110 trials) do not support their ultimate conclusion that homeopathic interventions are no better than placebo. Overall, enough clinical evidence exists to warrant further research.”
Where Does Homeopathy Fit in Pharmacy Practice? Teela Johnson, HonBSc and Heather Boon, BScPhm, Am J Pharm Educ. 2007 February 15; 71(1): 07.

In other words, the one piece of evidence used by the anti homeopathy tribe “has been highly criticized for being methodologically flawed on many levels.”
The worst part of it was that Shang did not clearly identify the criteria that was used for the trials they selected, or even the identity of those trials! And you say Scofield wasn’t rigorous in his review of the literature, because he didn’t say what you wanted hijm to say? How can you criticize Scofield and excuse Shang, the only piece of evidence drawn upon in the assertion that homeopathy is a placebo?
But it gets even worse for you, because Shang actually contradicts himself. Shang actually admits in another part off the study THAT THERE IS EVIDENCE FOR HOMEOPATHY. LOL! And furthermore, Shang, like all the critics of homeopathy, does not clearly identify what is meant by “placebo.” The placebo effect has been recognized as being a powerful one. So in other words, homeopathy, by Shang’s implication, is powerful medicine.
You don’t want to believe it just as Shang didn’t want to, but the truth seeps out anyway, doesn’t it? Homeoapthy works, and anyone who puts it to a real test can see that it does, beaautifully. That there are those who try to dissociate themselves from it with equivocation may not be exusable, but it certainly is understandable. Some of us simply are more comfortable bearing the truth than we are uncomforatable while under attack for speaking it. Frankly, I find it quite stimulating.

Jon continues to cite the 1997 Linde et al paper. Despite Linde himself having retracted it. And said that its findings cannot be used to support homeopathy. As the man himself said:

“The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis [7]. Since we completed our literature search in 1995, a considerable number of new homeopathy trials have been published. The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials (e.g. [14,15]) have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most “original” subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy [16]), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis [7] at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments.” Linde et al, Impact of Study Quality on Outcome in Placebo-Controlled Trials of Homeopathy, J Clin Epidemiol Vol. 52, No. 7, pp. 631–636, 1999, Template:Doi

You’ll need to do better, Jon. However much you wish it to be otherwise, it’s just water.

Look who needs to do a better job: Where’s the retraction of their conclusion that homeopathy is not a placebo? So what if they went back and found that rigor affects the outcome of some the trials? GIVE IT UP! When are you going to get it into your head that these metas of clinical trials are done for the pseudoscientists? Bias works both ways. Whenever they come across positive results they have to go back and raise the bar.
The proof of homeopathic medicine is comprehensive. It’s cohort granularity in homeopathic test, trial, study, practice is found in the materia medica, which is supported in the attendant literature and Federal statute, not in “cliical trials.” Doing this on your home court by your ever changing rules, you still get the crap beat out of you.
Anyone using enough of the materials in question here will eventually at some point back away from them because of the aggravations they evoke.
This persistent mass delusion among atheists that the ionized materials used in homeopathy are inert never ceases to amaze me, so much so that I question my own atheism and the science that goads it on.

In one year African Americans constituted 13 percent of drug users but 35 percent of drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences. For non-drug offenses, African Americans got prison terms that averaged about 10 percent longer than Caucasians for similar crimes.
Homeopathy could have helped.

It would appear that the trauma American blacks have been exposed to is what has congenitally contributed otheir plight, that they carry a burden that is more than cultural. Homeoapthy can address genetic trauma. I’d suggest high potencies of Arnica, Ignatia, and Staphysagria to help relieve them of this emotional history.
This a dymaic process. Homeopathy works on a spiritual level, as well as emotional and physical.
We ahve seen, for eaample, that when trauma is addressed in rverse order of coming, as anamnesis, old, forgtotten traumas appear, until, in some cases, patients remember past life traumas.
It is my belief that when you heal yourself of a deep ill, you are helping to heal a collective wound.

Genetic trauma is the memory of injuries suffered by the parents, passed ontot he children. Immanuel Velikovsky,(World’s in Collision) has made the most extended case for genetic trauma in building a case for a past world wide cataclysm, reported in every myth and history, that still affects the behavior of modern humanity.

John, this phrase of yours:
“It is my belief that when you heal yourself of a deep ill, you are helping to heal a collective wound.” … is the most interesting what I have read in the last 5 months.

Why? Because I have made personal experience with that. For example: around me there was a situation that a lot of people acted very cowardly and swanky, trying to achieve power over the others. It was clear to me that this was a collective problem. Therefore I decided to take for myself a very high potency of Lycopodium (1 MM), because I would never be able to convince all this people for a individual homeopathic treatment, but I was aware that the remedy could act through me on others. The effect was like a atomic bomb, me as the epicenter. Everyone around me (except me) got a typical initial aggravation, and then after a week everyone was cool. This helped to heal the collective illness.

Yes PZ has linked this blog entry on his site Phyrangula. But I am not a fan of how the drug companies run their world. I personally do not like profit driven models for key areas of human existence. Medicine being one and education being another.

Also I do believe that the general populace does rely on the crutch of pills all too often and don’t even use them effectively (stopping a course of antibiotics half way through ’cause they are feeling better, which only goes towards breeding stronger more drug resilient bugs).

So yes I have issues with the world of medicine but, and it is a big but, actual medicine for the most part works. Yes, most of it is very dangerous if you setp out side the perameters of the stated dose. Heck a lot of it is very dangerous even withing the stated dose. I don’t claim for one second that modern medicine is a completely safe or totally efficacious solution but on the whole it does work.

Homeopathy on the other hand is way too far down the road of ‘woo’ for me to be happy with

The first BIG problem is the notion that like cures like. In other words, something that causes the symptoms the patient is already showing will cure those symptoms. This is not too far from the old notion that god built signatures into plants and other things to give us hints at what they will cure. (ground up seed pods of yellow roses are efficacious against jaundus.) Without the ultra-dilute solutions used by homeopathy this souls be a spectacularly dangerous practice. Say someone presents with nausea and vomiting, and in the law of simerlarities to prescribe syrup of ippicac (or some other vomiting agent). If you perscribe the agent at full strength you would not be surprised if the nausea and vomiting got worse. Well Duh!!. If you prescribe the homeopathic solution of the same agent, where it can be objectively shown to contain zero molecules of that agent, is it likely to make the patient worse? Highly unlikely. Will it make them better? Again highly unlikely. I mean how could it it’s just water? The patient may feel more relaxed and less anxious over their condition due to the time and attention of a practitioner who doing their best to alleviate then patients fears. And being given ‘medicine’ by that practitioner and being told that this will help is proven to be an effective placebo that can reduce stress and kick in the body’s own healing systems. I’m not decrying the value of more face time with a practitioner and I’m not knocking the use of placebo where that is appropriate, as those thing are extremely valuable in and of themselves.

Ok so the principal of similarities would be deadly if not for the complete and utter lack of the active agent in homeopathic solutions, which brings me to the next point. That is these solutions are just water… Nothing else. This is not just an idle claim by by me, but an easily demonstrable fact. You might, just might, out sheer stupid luck end up with a single molecule of the active ingredient in you little tube of ‘medicine’ but the odds are so astronomically huge that you have better odds of winning the lotto jackpot ten times in a row. In an attempt to mitigate this easily provable fact it is claimed that the water some how has ‘memory’. That is that by some mysterious and as yet unexplained process the water retains an imprint of the substance it was exposed to in incredibly small amounts. While I’m not ruling this out 100% (it would be disingenuous of my to claim otherwise) as there is no credible proposed model that explains this I have to hold the notion as extremely improbable.

Water is H2o molecules that are loosely bound together with other H2o molecules by covalent hydrogen bonds. It has been suggested that it is these covalent bonds that somehow carry the imprint. But these bonds are constantly breaking and reforming with different molecules. If it was at all possible for these bonds to hold a pattern that invoked the effect of a substance it had been exposed to then this pattern would be destroyed as the covalent bonds constantly break and reform.

But even if it was possible for water to hold an imprint of whatever it has been exposed to then you do have to ask if it can remember the slightest trace of an active agent introduced to its then diluted to the point of no existence, then how comes it does not contain traces of every substance it has ever been with sniffing distance of? After all during the amount of deep time that the oceans have been swilling around this planet then virtually all the world’s water must have been in contact with virtually every substance there is. If water memory is a fact then surely water, all water, must surely contain the imprint of most substances.

As I said there has not yet been proposed a mechanism that successfully demonstrates this proposed memory function of water. If a valid process is ever proposed and is shown to hold true then I will happily re-evaluate my position (and it will be very interesting) but till then, if you will forgive me, I can not treat the subject of homeopathy as serious.

Ok that is my concerns about homeopathy in and of itself but now we come to people who spout the extremely dangerous views that modern medicine is evil and dangerous and that it should shunned in favour for, surprise surprise, homeopathy!

I personally hold this to be as reprehensible as Jehovah’s Witnesses shunning life saving blood transfusions as they believe this equates to ‘eating blood’, or devoutly religious parents who reject modern medicine to rely on the power of prayer. This stories welcome have happy endings. In trying to steer people towards homeopathy over modern medicine you are going to kill people. It’s as simple as that.

You are going to kill people by turning them away from effective medicine to put their faith in a treatment that is at best simply a placebo, and that is utterly reprehensible.

Dear Ohnhai – I thank you for bringing the Cowan study (Ultrafast memory loss and energy redistribution in the hydrogen bond network of liquid H2O)
to our attention, for it raises some embarassing questions.
In the terms of Freemasonry, a “cowan” is a false Mason, one who works on the externals, such as dry wall finishing, painting, spying on the real masons (read Hardy’s Jude the Obscure) after the hard owrk of building the infrastructure has been done. Masons ban cowans from their lodges.
In this case think it can be applied to cowan within the accpeetable literature.
Why is is that all references I have seen so far in regards to the breakage of the hydrogen bond are always Cowan? Why is this claim for the duration of the bond not substantiated by anyone else other than the celebrated Cowan? How does Cowan conclude that liquid water“loses the memory of persistent correlations in its structure within 50 fs when Chaplin, the world’s leading authority on water, makes a statement to the contrary, that water stores and transmits information?
Cowan is the study that has appeared to me to be what has been in the back of the no memory of water claim. Like Shang, it the work of a cowan. A phony, a fake scientist.
I’ll prove it to you.
But first allow me to say that even so, out of the thousands of comments I have received over the years in my videos and blog, most of which contain nothing but slurs, this is the first time anyone has confronted me with Cowan . . so bravo to Ohnhai for that. However, I must confess, I feel somewhat like a cat, toying with its prey before murderinig it.

Cowan says “Many of the unusual properties of liquid water are attributed to its unique structure, comprised of a random and fluctuating three-dimensional network of hydrogen bonds that link the highly polar water molecules. One of the most direct probes of the dynamics of this network is the infrared spectrum of the OH stretching vibration3, which reflects the distribution of hydrogen-bonded structures and the intermolecular forces controlling the structural dynamics of the liquid. Indeed, water dynamics has been studied in detail, most recently using multi-dimensional nonlinear infrared spectroscopy for acquiring structural and dynamical information on femtosecond timescales. But owing to technical difficulties, only OH stretching vibrations in D2O or OD vibrations in H2O could be monitored. Here we show that using a specially designed, ultrathin sample cell allows us to observe OH stretching vibrations in H2O. Under these fully resonant conditions, we observe hydrogen bond network dynamics more than one order of magnitude faster than seen in earlier studies that include an extremely fast sweep in the OH frequencies on a 50-fs timescale and an equally fast disappearance of the initial inhomogeneous distribution of sites. Our results highlight the efficiency of energy redistribution within the hydrogen-bonded network, and that liquid water essentially loses the memory of persistent correlations in its structure within 50 fs.”

There is a naked anomaly in what Cowan so recklessly claims as the amnesia of water. It correlates with what he is forgetting.
It is a problem I have persistently put before the “scientists” who insist that water is an amnesiac. All they can do is get very red in the face. Cowan could easily be used as a test by the military to detect native intelligence, or the lack of it, or by the better schools as a test for admission, for as yet no one has been able to rectify it.
What Cowan and all the rest of those who follow him so desperately try to disperse is the impossibility of liquid aqueous structuring. It is what I centered my lecture around at the Cavendish. It is a simple observation that anyone can confirm with his or her own eyes. You can see it for yourself. It is laughable that the man who was supposed to know very little science is now the one here who brings it to your attention.
My name is John Benneth.
I’m a homeopath.
If “liquid water essentially loses the memory of persistent correlations in its structure within 50 fs,” then how does Cowan explain the persistent effects of hydrogen bonding that can be observed with the naked eye?
When you pour a glass of water, it bubbles and foams. That is hydrogen bonding that lasts for longer than 50 femto seconds.

Water surface tension, what creates that thin gelatinous film that curves aorund a drop or within a glass , is attributed to the persistent correlations in its structure, caused by hydrogen bonding. The hdyrogen bonds in water surface tension are so strong that undisturbed they will float a pin or paper clip carefully laid upon the surface with a fork. Are those not a “correlations” that last longer than 50 fs?

More to the point, how does Cowan explain the clathrate hydrate? How does Cowan explain water clusters? As if out off nowhere, why do bubbles appear along the side of a glass of water after it has been sitting for a length of time? If not for persistent internal sturcutring, why do they not stay dissolved? Could it be because of the persistent inner tension caused by hydrogen bonding in water?

Notice that nowhere in the language of Cowan’s abstract does he claim that the bond breaks. He talks about the bond stretching, like a spring, but he never states or implies it disassociates, ecept to say “an equally fast disappearance of the initial inhomogeneous distribution of sites.” WHaty does that mean? Only at the very end of his abstract does he suddenly leap to another conclusion, that is evdience for amnesia..
Consider this, that the water molecule, which is a polar protic one, will naturally self-assemble. If you were to take a number of truncated tetrahedrons with their four transverse faces, and to represent the hydrogen bond, on two of those faces place a “positive” Velcro patch, and the remaining two opposing faces place “negative” patches, then place them all in a paper bag an shake them up, would they not inevitably all find themselves attached to one another, negative to positive?
Or better yet, replace the Velcro with magnets, and take these tetrahedra with you on your next trip beyond gravity into outer space. Floating weightless, will they not eventually find themselves? So what iinternal force with the H2O molecule and their asoications is it that Cowan is claiming to have discovered?
Consider the polar protic water molecule. Is it really as free as Cowan suggests? Is he saying that after 50 fs of coitus with another water molecule, it bounces off, swims off and commits adultery with another?

Perhaps.

But what is it Cowan proposes the moelcule is swimming in? What oscillating force within the H2O molecule accounts for this agitation for this breakup that destroys it archival architecture? If 50 fs is the duration of the “bond,” what is the length of separation? How does Cowan explain the gel like nature of water, which it loses with the introduction of soap?

How is it that Cowan can make these observations? It is quite evident to unfettered reason, as he himself reports, that the bond is merely stretching and contracting.

How can he isolate and track a single molecular? He’s not. He’s looking at the dynamics of water and drawing the conclusions he wants from it. Heshould be the one posig the questions, not me. He’s making things up. This work by Cowan is called scientism. It merely poses as knoweldge under the color of authority. SHow us what it is in black and white. Lead us with your questions, give us your results and let us make our own conclusions.

Hydrogen “bonds” logically will break when two or more molecules are pulled apart. Thisis something I can udnerstand. The winds blow, the waters churn, the Moon orbits, the tides ebb and flow.
Water molecules, monomers, gang up in twos, as “dimers” or more, up to four associations for every molecule, and can theoretically create chains and matrixes. Other workers report dodechedralo structures in liquid water. Montangier has measured them throughthe use of filtration, and foundthey havwe electromagneitc indicies. How does Cowan ecuse that?
Cowan refers to these structures, but then goes on to conclude that they last for only 50 femto seconds. But stop and consider for a femto-second or two, that such a structure could not even last that long unless every water molecule was synchronized. If structuring can dissassocciate within 50 femtos, then it can reassociate inthe same amounto time. Doen’t this explain all material assoications at the molecular level?

Cowen could simply be observing his own influence made by his equipment. The very act of observing the water molecule can not be dismissed as having no influence on it. How does Cowan’s machine affect what Cowan is seeing? How does the ridicule and vehement oppostion tot he memory of water affect the observations of it? It’s not just an extreme bia against the memory of water, it’s a threat of heresy.

This puts us all in avery doubtful space.

Cowan does not mention external forces, Cowan implies intra molecular forces within a body of water that govern the action of the molecule. What intermolecular force to cleave pushes it away with greater force? How does it recover from the broken bond and reassociate? It sounds like the family life of most of these skeptics. The H2O molecule is characterized by Cowan as a lonely, divorced individual, never making a commitment, never holding on to a partner . .
But seriously, even if Cowan’s disociation theory for water is true, then there must be some other contiguous force within a drop, gallon or ocean of water that binds it together, so that the effects of one molecule, though momentary, are replaced by another.
With four connecting points, the H2O molecule can theoretically have as many as four associations at any one time.. This presents a picture of a gridlocked matrix. It is more likely that the molecule is spinning, vibating, hut remaining in place, and its disassociations are made by outside forces as well as internal separations from contaminants.
Even what is considered to be the purest water contains eogenic heterogeneous contaminants that are heterogeneous within the aqueous molecular spectrum, with traces of other combinations of hydrogen and oxygen, such as H2O2.
Logically, when H2O molecules dissociate, it is because they are pulled apart by external forces, demonstrated in aqueous auto thixotropy, where water mysteriously becomes a gel when left undisturbed. If auto thixotropy is not the memory of persistent correlations in its structure caused by hydrogen bonding, then what is it?
Once again, Martin Chaplin, the world’ leading authority on water, does not agree with Cowan. Chaplin says, “water DOES have the ability to store and transmit information.”
Case closed.
But this has been a detour from logic to explain what everyone except for Cowan and those who choose to follow him can see for themselves in direct observation.
I think the only thing falling apart here is Cowan.

The craven ad homonym attacks ( Cowan and Shang) at the start of this Reply do you no favours what so ever, good sir. It is extremely bad form to to attack people directly rather than take on their arguments. and calling calling these men fakes, spys and charlatans is definitely that.

And reading Chaplin (thanx for the name, i’ve learned things today) he does not make any claim that his work supports homeopathy. In fact he goes out of his way to say that “The Experimentally corroborated memory phenomena cannot be taken as supporting the basic tenets of homeopathy…” (www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/memory.html) and elsewhere on his site he his deeply sceptical of the efficacy of homeopathic solutions in and of themselves.

He points out that “even the purest water should be considered grossly contaminated compared with the theoretical homeopathic dilution levels” and goes on to suggest that the actual dilution process can change the concentrations of these contaminates and their associated particular clustering. This is enough to account for the observable but extremely subtle variation between homeopathic solutions and their aqueous control.

As to Chaplin disagreeing with Cowan. Chaplin clearly states that the hydrogen bonds have a very short life span but puts the life span of hydrogen bonds at the picosecond Mark rather than the femtosecond that Cowan states. So yes they disagree, but honestly if the difference we are talking about here is between femtoseconds and picoseconds it still does not bode well for hydrogen bonds being a viable ‘memory’ in the terms that homeopaths understand by that term.

Further more the clusters that you mention and that Chaplin also mention are addressed. Before today I was unaware of these clusters so I must thank you for pointing me in the direction of Chaplin. However Chaplin, whom you seem to hold as the authority on water, clearly points out that these clusters have been shown not to persist beyond 1 millisecond which corresponds to the lifetime of an individual water molecule (the atoms of water molecules only remain together for about one millisecond due to proton exchange)

So hydrogen bonds do not last long enough to be the required long term memory effect as prescribed by homeopathic theory. Nor do the structures known as clusters. Also due to proton exchange the water molecules themselves do not persist unchanged for longer than a millisecond. To explain the memory effect, as it is understood by the homeopathic community, you have to forget water alltogether and try and find a mechanism with the structure of individual atoms that can work as the memory function as homeopathy understands it.

All in all upon reading Chaplin on this subject, while Chaplin does describe water as having a memory of sort it is abundantly clear that it falls far short of how the homeopathic community erroneously understands that term. And in this he actually agrees with Cowan.

If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!

Did you know that in the action of solvents “like dissolves like?” That’s a chemical fact. So why should it be so hard to believe that in the use of solvents in medicine, like cures like? But what does it matter? Just because its hard for you to believe doesn’t makeit invalid for me? Would my criticism of you to change your beliefs? is that allit takes in your world? Have you ever topped to think about how much of this you’re presuming? What do you really know of the experiences of others? How can you really judge me or anyone else based on nothing more than theory?
As confounding as it may be to you, it is applied as it is because its been observed to work. In fact, that people insist that it works in spite of what would seem to be reason, and in the face of persistent ridicule obstinate resistance is strong supportive evidence for the claim. Why make anextraordinary claim if you can’t support it with extraordinary evidence? How many phrenologists or Memserists do you know of? Yes the world isteeming with praccitioners and users of homeoapthy, manyof them MDs. I have yeet to see one argument by a critic that isn’t based of a fallacious preseumption, yours included.

For instance, you say there hasn’t been a proposed mechanism for the memory of water. How do you know? I described the mechanism as supramoelcular, inia lecture at the Cavendish and at Hahnemann College recently, and I’ve been supported in my desciption of the hydrogen bonded network in water by top scientists. So you’re wroong about there not being any proposed mechanism. Now you’re going to have to argue whether or not its right or not, an you will, you will be compelled to, you don'[t have any control over it. If you did, you wouldn’t have so imprudently argued it the way you have already. You’ve become a victim of your own thoughts.
Why would you accept my theory for homeopathy when you won’t accept the in vitro evidence for homeopathy? Or did you know about the in vitro evidence? I bet you didn’t, because evidence isn’t important to you. Simply appearing to be right is all that is important to you.
Look how you’re careening all over the road in your discussion. You seem to think that homeoapthy is the renunciation of all aminstream medicine. It’s not.
There are many facets to modern medicine that are indeed helpful. If I broke my arm I wouldn’t expect a homeopath to set it. Homeoapthy may be able tohelp keep mefrom gpoing into shock , it can help to heal the frature, but it’s not going to set the bones. It needs somebody who knows how to set bones to do it. When I need surgery, I go to a surgeon. When I need poisoning, I got to a poisoner. If I needed a transfusion I wouldn’t expect to get it from a chiropractor. But neither would I go to mainstream oncologist if I had cancer. I treat it with homeoapthy. Sorry, I know that drives you wild, but there’s more than one person reading this blog who has cured himself of cancer using homeopathy. And any argument you use against homeopathy in this regard is the same argument that could be used against oncology. It’s a placebo and is just a coincidence that they got well. But some sources are now saying that iatrogenesis has becoemthe leading cause of death in the US.
Many successful surgeons have employed homeopathy in their practices because it works. Fortuantely they don’t listen to the ignorant who say it it doesn’t. Look at the work of Florence Nightingale Ward, MD, one of America’s first great woman surgeons, and Senator Royal Copeland, MD, who was the commissioner of health for NYC and the sponsor of the FDCA. Both Ward and Copeland were practicing homeopaths as well as MDs.
So explain to me how I’m supposed to rectify Nobel prize laureates, MD’s and material scientists who have made in depth studies, practices and tests of homeopathy, concluded it has valid effects, against the comnplaints I find by people who are ignorant of its use?
Who am I supposed to side with? The professionals who have put it to the test, or the anonymous amateurs, like you, who take potshots at it, as you are doing?

Yes I am not in any way shape or form an expert on this subject (or many subjects) so yes ‘amateur’ is an applicable label. But when used as a pejorative is cuts. As I said ad homonyms are not nice.

But I am reading and I am learning, and that is the important thing.

As to my anonymity my online handle ‘ohnhai’ is one I’ve been using for close to 15 years now. My real name (Stephen Rushbrook) is clearly tied to the Ohnhai handle. I’m not hiding in anonymity behind it. I’m proud of the name and it is simply my online identity. I hope you can accept that.

I will apolagise if you read my comments as damming all homeopaths and taring them with the brush of promoting homeopathy to the utter exclusion of all conventional medicine. I do realise that this is not the case and that the majority truly understand the nature of the term ‘complimentary’. Heck. Even I do accept the beneficial effects in the more individual approach to patient care that is a corner stone of homeopathy (something conventional medicine could learn from). Also leaving aside the thorny question of whether homeopathy is simply placebo or not, I’m sure that even you would accept that placebo does have an important role in conventional medicine, yes?

But that said , as I’m sure you must be aware, there are more than a few homeopathic practitioners and advocates who overstep the bounds of prudence and either because they are ignorant of homeopathy’s limits and or due to an almost rabid hatred of ‘Big Pharma’ do steer their patients away from conventional medications. I recall reading somewhere, though I can’t remember the web site so take this however you will, of a case where someone died after their homeopath convinced them that a particular regimen of solutions were more effective than their existing conventional heart medication. It didn’t end well.

All I was trying to say was that those homeopaths who forget the complementary element of complementary medicine and do over state the abilities of homeopathy at the expense of lifesaving conventional meds are utterly reprehensible.

I’m sure that you don’t sit in this camp and are of the reasonable persuasion that both conventional medicine and the alternative therapies must worth together and be aware of their own and each others failings, strengths and boundaries.

As I have said I have no problems with the patient care element of homeopathy. Seriously none. I believe the far more intimate relationship between practitioner and patient is extremely vauble and effective at putting the patient at ease and consequently reducing worry and stress, and if stress is reduced then this is proven to help patients recover better and quicker.

But Im still unconvinced as to the efficacy of the solutions in their own right. Even more so after reading Chaplin on the subject. (see above)

Dear Spider Jon — What makes you think what you’re calling for hasn’t been provided already? If you actually knew something about this subject and weren’t acting as a drug company stooge, simply repeating the disinformation that they want you to believe and spread, you would know that there are hundreds of clinical trials for homeopathy. Not one meta analsyis could conclude that homeoapthics were placebos. Look at the case reports, reporting on the clinical experience of countless medical doctors who used homeopathics in their practice, like Senator Royal Copeland, MD, the homeopath who sponsored the the FDCA? Google it if you don’t believe me. And he’s certainly not the only phsyhician of stature to have practiced homeoapthy. Take Florence Nightingale Ward, one of America’s first European trained surgeons, who was a woman. Should they and other physicians like them have kept their mouths shut about homeoapthy, too? No. They relied on it for the same reason the rest of us rely on it now, because it works, beautifully. Sorry, I know it doesn’t fit your paradigm of trying to kill your patient/victim before relieving him of his cold, but some of us just ccouldn’t buy into your racket.
What about 200 years of development of the materia medica corpus mundi, taken from 100’s of thousands of case notes and provings? And why are you asking for clinicals when you should be asking for the pre-clinicals first? Why aren’t you asking if the substances used as remedies in homeopathy having any effect on plants and animals first? Do you see? You haven’t even been taught how to investigate a problem before you. It’s an anomalie, no? The why aren’t you aksing intelligent questions first before you start issuing orders to your superiors?
Look, Spider Jon, I’ve been through this a thousand times with ignoramuses who say the same things to me that you’re saying here. You’ve been duped by the drug companies into being their stooge. Take a closer look at the evidence for homeopathy, it works.

I am not a drug company stooge. I have never worked for a pharmaceutical company; none of my family members have; nor have any of my friends. Given that, I am initially sceptical of any of their claims. They have produced dubious studies to promote their products, so scepticism is warranted, at least initially. But if the product works, accept it.

In the same way, I am sceptical of your claims. As far as I can tell, homeopathy has never proposed a mechanism by which it might work that is supported by science.

I think SpiderJon makes a reasonable request. You asked him to takes a closer look at the evidence for homeopathy. Can you please produce it? If, you do, I will look at it.

Thank you Frank, when you put it that way it doesn’t sound so bad. You haven’t really stated what your question is specifically,though, or which of my presumed claims you are questioning. So I must assume you are asking about “efficacy.”
What I’ve seen the debate circle around is an implied question, whether or not homeoapthics have any intrinsic biological effects. The presumption by “skeptics” is that they do not. The many clinicals trials are not a very good determination, because they are always suspect of placebo effects and their reports of lack of improper peer reivew, publication quality or bias.
Homeopathy depends on individualization, whcih makes placebo controlled trials difficult and to do. Many of those trials of homeopathy tested for an effect on a particular condition, which has actually been done successfully, but this not a good test of efficacy, for homeoapths do not address specific conditions with the same remedy. This may seem odd, but it is how the profession has learned to most successfully treat its clientele. Treatment is highly dependent on the skill of the physician.
Here’s an example of a report that was published in an AMA journal:

I find Scofield to be a particularly interesting review, because Scofield is really the first comprehensive review of pre-clincials, which answers for me the placebo question. If homeopathics work on plants and animals, then they must have intrinsic biological effects.
The 2007 WItt review does the same with in vitro testing.

The other metas in this usually cover about 200 clinical trials. None of the metas concluded that homeoapthic remedies were placebos, not even the discredited Shang review could make the charge conclusively, which is what most critics rely on to make the placebo charge.
A good basic review of the literatue can be found in the following report done for pharmacists, who musst have an accurate picture of the problem:

JOHNSON BOON: Where Does Homeopathy Fit in Pharmacy Practice? Am J Pharm Educ. 2007 February 15; 71(1): 07
They state:
“Homeopathy has been the cause of much debate in the scientific literature with respect to the plausibility and efficacy of homeopathic preparations and practice. Nonetheless, many consumers, pharmacists, physicians, and other health care providers continue to use or practice homeopathic medicine and advocate its safety and efficacy. As drug experts, pharmacists are expected to be able to counsel their patients on how to safely and effectively use medications, which technically includes homeopathic products. Yet many pharmacists feel that the homeopathic system of medicine is based on unscientific theories that lack supporting evidence. Since consumers continue to use homeopathic products, it is necessary for pharmacists to have a basic knowledge of homeopathy and to be able to counsel patients about its general use, the current state of the evidence and its use in conjunction with other medications.”

I think this review does a good job of addressing the general use and evidence. Please read it before making any harse judgments about homeopathy. Google it, the full report is online.

Thanks for a polite question, you’re welcome to explore this issue further with me.

Dear ColinG- Wilson doesn’t note that Shang fails to explain his criteria or even identify what he is analyzing. Dr. Peter Fisher, MD, repeatedly asked Prof Egger for it and was ignored.
But here is what is really fascinating about Shang, is that they actually do admit an effect for homeopathics.
And as usual, the worst that can be said of homeoapthy by the disbelivers is that it is a placebo? Ha! Even if we were to accept such a vague and mysterious explanation for its effect, the placebo effect has been noted to be a powerful one. SO does that mean homeoapthy is powerful medicine? According to SHang it must be! LOL!
But if they truly believed this claim they would put it to the test on in vitro and in vivo subjects immune to it . . plants, animals, biochmeical subjects.
Er . . why are you avoiding those studies? Could it be because they make the placebo charge look ridiculous?

I’m confused. Homeopathy could heal gun shot wounds with ledum pelustre , aconitum napellum, arnica Montana or child sexual abuse? This is an assault on thinking people everywhere and those looking for serious assistance.

Dear Simon — Stop making things up. There’s a big difference in the words “could heal” and “could have helped to heal.”
Read the article again. Your mind is doing things on its own and jumping to conlcusions. Homeoapthy is an influence, allopathy is an intervention.

In one year 3,000,000 American workers were unemployed but not counted because their unemployment benefits had run out, or they never qualified for benefits, or they had given up looking for work, or they joined the armed forces because they were unable to find work. Homeopathy could have helped with remedies such as Arg-n. Cadm-s. Calc. Cham. Cygnus-b. Gran. Hyos. Ind. Kali-c. Kali-p. Kali-s. Nat-m. Nux-v. Petr. Puls. Ran-b. Sanic. Sel. Sil. Sulph. Tab. Tarax. And Tong.

Huh? Homeopathy could have helped the unemployed find work? Or would it merely have stopped them joining the US army?

Very funny, Bob O’H. Speaking of unemployment, I hear Reno just fired all their standup comics and is now lookig for a new batch of losers tomake everyone laugh, you ought to apply.
I didn’t say homeopathy would help the unemployed find work. Homeopathy could have helped people deal with the stress of being unemployed, and not having that stress, or perhaps that inability to adapt to new problems, they would have felt more relaxed and might have taken a different look at their situation, and taken on some work they may not have thought themselves capable of before. On a greater scale, maybe its time we changed our attitudes about where to find work. When times get tough, the tough get get going and ind ways tomake things work for them. Maybe it meanslearning to be less competitive and more cooperative with others in politics and joint ventures.

Dear John, a very good answer! I was looking forward to see what rubric have you had in mind when you wrote this. Now I see this, thank you for the clarification! ANd it is so true about your suggestion to change the outlook and adapt – and actually find new alleys out there, this is what is really needed for our world right now, isn’t it?

So homeopathy is the solution to every medical, psychological and social problem there is. Hypovolaemic shock, gunshot wounds, unemployment, etc etc etc.
You missed out homeopathy raises the dead.
You really have lost all touch with reality havn’t you

Dr. Zorro — WHy would you say that I have lost touch with all reality, while it is you who are posing as some fantasy character?LOL! As Dr. Zorro, how do you handle your patients ills? Stab them?
I didn’t say homeoapthy was a soltuion to any kind of ill, I said that it could help.
Big difference in the way you think and the way we as homeopaths think about problems. You fight the problem as a cladnstine character, as if the problem is some separate entity, while we assist the individual by viewing his problems as epressions of his suffering and guides to a remedy that will affect him on a spiritual level, as well as phsyhical and emotional.
We know what you’re up to. Any good homeoapth can see right through your cheeky act, Don Diego.

You have no idea how I treat my patients, how I approach their problems or how I think, and your argument is classical straw man construct. One thing I don’t do is take money off them for worthless sugar tablets. And the only good homeopath…….

Oh dear me, Dr. Zorro, are you suggesting that the only good homeopath . . is a dead homeopath? And we’re not even your patients, or should I say your paying victims, are we? I thought murder was reserved solely for them, and now here’ you’re implying that you’re going to offer free treatment to anyone who presents himself to you as a homeopath? Very good! Just what I would expect from an allopath.